The Color Within : Exclusive Interview With Director Naoko Yamada

The Color Within : Exclusive Interview With Director Naoko Yamada

©Courtesy of GKIDS

The Color Within : Totsuko is a high school student with the ability to see the ‘colors’ of others. Colors of bliss, excitement, and serenity, plus a color she treasures as her favorite. Kimi, a classmate at her school, gives off the most beautiful color of all. Although she doesn’t play an instrument, Totsuko forms a band with Kimi and Rui, a quiet music enthusiast they meet at a used bookstore in a far corner of town. As they practice at an old church on a remote island, music brings them together, forming friendships and stirring affections. Will they discover their true ‘colors’?
Producer : Yoshihiro Furusawa, Genki Kawamura, Eunyoung Choi, Wakana Okamura, Kohei Sakita
Screenwriter : Reiko Yoshida
Distributor : GKIDS
Production Co : Story Inc., Science Saru
Rating : PG (Mild Thematic Elements)
Genre : Drama, Anime, Music
Original Language : Japanese
Release Date (Theaters) : Jan 24, 2025, Limited
Runtime : 1h 50m
The Color Within
The Color Within : Exclusive Interview Director Naoko Yamada

Q : In your films, I personally have the impression that each main character has a unique view of the world, and in a sense, the main character creates a microcosm of the world, and the audience feels as if they are floating in that microcosm. This is what really impressed me and gave me a very pleasant sensation. What do you consider important when you start drawing the main character?

Naoko Yamada : Thank you very much. That is a very nice interpretation. One of the things I’m often asked is, “Is the main character in the film a reflection of yourself?” I don’t feel myself present in this movie. When I think about the characters or face them, it’s like I’m facing them as someone I know, a friend, a family member, or a complete stranger, and I hold that value dear.

My intention is not for the characters to discuss what I want, but to inquire about their thoughts, preferences, perceptions, and aspirations, among others. That is something I really value.

Q : The film’s approach is appealing because it doesn’t use a lot of dialogue, but rather uses color and dance to convey its message. When depicting young people in animation, I believe that in normal animation, there is a lot of dialogue. In this film, I think you put a lot of emphasis on non-verbal expression.

Naoko Yamada : I believes that something that has a name provides a sense of security. Also, I believe that in recent movies, there have been many instances where the correct way to watch a movie is presented even before it’s shown.

It’s like, ‘Let’s watch the movie this way!’ I don’t find that very intriguing. My desire is for people to become more involved while watching movies, and I aim to watch them in that manner. I thought it was not necessary to immediately express what I felt after watching a movie.

I don’t think it is necessary to talk about it right away, and I really hope that it will trigger something in you to think about first, I wanted to make a film that could be interpreted in a hundred different ways by a hundred different people who saw it, such as through physical dance, music, or color.

Q: For a number of years, you have been collaborating with screenwriter Reiko Yoshida and this time you develop a non-verbal approach. When you began working with Yoshida, what was your starting point? Did you inform Yoshida in advance?

Naoko Yamada : We may not have discussed that in detail. I feel that, just like in a movie, the moment you put a word or a name to something, it dies. So when I talk with Ms. Yoshida, I don’t talk too much about specifics,

I try to talk about the form of the film as if I were talking about the form of the surroundings.

Q : I see. The use of color, the dance, and so on, so you are trying to lay out the colors, the dance, and so on, in a specific way?

Naoko Yamada : Yes, of course, there are many things that we cannot proceed without being specific.

The Color Within

©Courtesy of GKIDS

 

Q : In this film, too, you are working with Kensuke Ushio on the music, especially the one word “Amen, I’m going Somehwere”, from which characters Kimi and Rui create various kinds of music in the film, how did you and Ushio actually work together to create this music? The words(“Amen, I’m going Somehwere”) alone are memorable, but I was very interested in the process of expanding them into music.

Naoko Yamada : Although we had worked together in another film, this was our first time working together to create music for this movie band, so we had to tune the music beforehand. I believe Ushio-san truggled to decide where to go with the phrase ‘Amen, I’m going somewhere’ in his mind.

However, to ease his worries, I began my presentation by saying that the character Totsuko was a child who came up with the words ‘Amen, I’m going somewhere’

From that point on, Ushio-san began to understand the character, and he began to think that since Ushio-san is a professional (musician), he must create music as a professional. So we said, “Let’s keep in our mind that the music was written by students, not professionals.

My intention is for the audience to be persuaded by the fact that these three individuals wrote and performed in that piece. Let’s produce music that is not produced by adults. Let’s make music that doesn’t sound like a product.

Q: Did Ushio-san suggest the theremin as a musical instrument? I don’t think an idea like the theremin would have come about unless you had some knowledge of music.

Naoko Yamada : Actually, I had already decided on the theremin from the very beginning. However, I had the impression that it was often used in a non-musical way, so I was wondering how to describe the floating, space-like feeling of the theremin, or the strange sense of sound it produces even when playing music. I had a chance to watch a YouTube video of a French theremin player, Mr. Grégoire Blanc, who played the theremin for Rui this time.

His theremin was really like a stringed instrument that had been pulled tight, and he was playing music not with a floating sound, but by perfectly matching it to the notes.  I was surprised at how clearly he was able to capture the scale of the theremin and play it, so that’s why I really wanted to play it in my film.

Q : Do you have any shared values or similarities with Ushio-san in terms of expression or sensitivity when you work with him?

Naoko Yamada: We are very close. Mr. Ushio is a very logical thinker, very erudite and intelligent, and as a human being, he is pretty much the opposite of me.

However, on the other side of his logical side, he also has a very sensible side, so he is able to go back and forth between the two.

When I talk to him, I think he probably handles which way to receive the conversation, but there are moments when his sensibility, what he has valued for a long time, and what he has valued match with what I have valued. There are moments when I think, “That’s a great fit.”

Q: These three characters, Totsuko, Kimi, and Rui, do not blend well with others as students, but I got the impression that they value each other’s individuality. Q: These three characters, Totsuko, Kimi, and Rui, do not blend well with others as students, but I got the impression that they value each other’s individuality.

I got the impression that they have such a sense of honesty and support for each other. What did you think were the elements that brought these three characters together when you were creating those characters?

Naoko Yamada: In my first goal, I wanted to depict the strength of being able to say what you like. It is easier to say “I don’t like it,” or when talking with people, if you say, “I like this,” and they deny it, it is very hurtful, or it is something very important, so I think it takes a lot of courage.

I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to say, “I love this! I wanted to depict a relationship in which a person can say, “I love this!” without fear. I wanted to depict the simple but most important things, such as accepting the other person and listening to what the other person has to say, step by step.

The Color Within

©Courtesy of GKIDS

Q : I would like to ask you about the casting of the Japanese voice actors for this film. How did you go about casting Suzukawa (Sayu) as Totsuko, Takaishi (Akari) as Kimi, and Kido (Daisei) as Rui?

Naoko Yamada :Totsuko is the most important character in the work, so I thought that if I did not decide on her, I would not be able to decide on the other two.

She is a very likable character, and she talks a lot of serious things, but she also has a strange sense of humor and talks about strange things. I felt that if I could get into that, or rather, if I could find Totsuko, I would be able to find a balance between Kimi and Rui. I was very lucky to have a voice actor Sayu Suzukawa, who was a perfect fit for the role. From the first time I heard her voice, I instantly recognized her as Totsuko…

Q : Did you audition her?

Naoko Yamada: Yes, that’s right. It was really difficult until the very end, and there were many possibilities.

For these three characters, we finally decided on different combinations of the remaining actors, and also decided on the interaction of the actors.

Q : What impressed me most about this film was the way you used color, are there any painters or paintings, and this is just my interpretation based on the film that European impressionists, so any other specific painters or works of art that actually had an influence on you?

Naoko Yamada : But really, as you said, the European impressionist paintings were shared among the staff. The colors of the character Totsuko feels, like Kimi and Rui are blue for Kimi, green for Rui, and finally red for Totsuko.  I set them up as the three primary colors of light, because impressionist painting is a technique of depicting light by dispersing light and putting many colors in one color, so I often talked about Impressionism, because it was the perfect technique for my work, and I wanted to paint light.

Q : I think that the audience can relate to this film because of the way each of the three characters behave and their so-called quirks, and that sort of thing, do you always try to make such things as conscious as possible?

I think this is one of the aspects of your works that people can easily empathize with, and I wonder if you are aware that such stories are easier to empathize with than flashy stories.

Naoko Yamada: I can’t remember how I started out, but as I said at the beginning, I had a strong sense of seeing the character as a person, and rather than starting with the idea of giving the character a certain habit, I felt that the character would move as I drew or interacted with her. It’s more like I’m trying to make the character have a certain habit, but as I’m drawing the character or interacting with the character, it’s like the character is moving. If she waves her hand in a certain way, I wanted it to look like this, or like this (Naoko makes a big waving gesture with her hand and a delicate waving gesture), or something like that.

The Color Within

©Courtesy of GKIDS

Q : Do you write down pages and pages of quirks, gestures, and whatnot about various characters, like Akira Kurosawa did?

Naoko Yamada : I don’t do it. So the staff may not be able to fully understand the characters. So, I put them in the storyboards when I write the storyboards, and gradually, there are many staff members who understand the characters well, and they are willing to give me ideas, I think it would be better to have some kind of character list..but..

Q : Does that mean that you and Mr. Kojima, the character designer, already have a common understanding of what you are going to do?

Naoko Yamada: I think so. Mr. Kojima is not the type of person who talks too much, so I imagine that we would respond to each other with about 1 out of 10, and we would build up the margins through our exchanges.

Q: On the contrary, that might be interesting from an expressive point of view…without going into too much detail.

Naoko Yamada: Personally, I prefer it that way, I don’t like to have everything decided for me, so I definitely want to have a blank space and to think about it, and I also want my partner to be someone who likes to think that way, too.

Q : I heard that you were greatly influenced by Makoto Shinkai, the director of the movies “Your Nane”(Kimi no na wa)” and “Weathering With You(Tenki no ko)”, what is it about Makoto Shinkai that attracts you, and what do you admire about him?

Naoko Yamada : I think that what Shinkai-san is doing and what I am doing are things that do not intersect at all, and conversely, I can honestly respect him, Shinkai-san is always Shinkai-san, and I don’t think of making a film like Shinkai-san’s. But I am very interested in what Shinkai-san is going to make next, so I don’t think of making a film like Shinkai-san’s. So I feel like I am watching him while I am running on my own. I think that Shinkai-san really values story development and story construction, and I am trying to write something that is outside of that.

Q : Your film won the Best Animated Feature Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and was also shown in the feature film competition at the Annecy International Film Festival(regarded as Academy Award of Animation). And now, GKIDS has been chosen to distribute the film in the U.S. The same company that also distributed Hayao Miyazaki’s films, how do you feel about the fact that GKIDS is going to distribute your film in the U.S.?

Naoko Yamada : Even Though I had hoped that one day I would be able to work with GKIDS as one of my goals.

It’s terrifying. (laugh) I had no choice but to do what I could do, and I was just absorbed in my work, and I had been working hard on it, but the fact that GKIDS was interested in my work and bought it was a good sign,

But when it actually happened, it was really scary, and I wondered if everyone was enjoying it. I am very anxious about whether everyone is having a good time or not. I feel like I’ve been put on a big boat.

Q : This film was screened at the Japan Society and other theaters in New York. Did you find that the reaction of Americans was different from that of Japanese people in Japan?

Naoko Yamada: It was very clear that while watching the film, people laughed a lot, but during the serious parts, they really took the film seriously, I could directly feel that they were really trying to enjoy the film.  In Japan, people respect movies by watching them quietly, it was really the complete opposite, and it was very enjoyable and stimulating.

If you like the interview, share your thoughts below! 

Check out more of Nobuhiro’s interviews.

Here’s the trailer of the film. 

Comment (0)

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here